Aversionline – Extreme Music Magazine: Interview with Nicolas Lampert, June 2002 All of the material on “Inside Passage” is two to four years old. What's the story behind that? Has everything just been a lengthy work in progress, or… ? Beneath the Lake started out as a project band when Dave and I were previously committed to other bands and living 2,000 miles away from each other. Dave was busy with Wage Class Slave (Black Earth, Wisconsin) which was putting out a lot of tape releases and compilation tracks. I was in Noisegate (Oakland, California) which was a full time band for me. We were playing shows weekly and were always either recording, touring or practicing. From the start, Dave and I envisioned that Beneath the Lake would record once a year in December at his home in Wisconsin and the band would be an outlet for the less harsh noise music that we wanted to make. So, I would travel out to Wisconsin each December, lay down tracks and Dave would mix them throughout the spring and summer. From the start, everything that we have done has been a long drawn out process that revolves around the seasons. Now that we both live in Wisconsin, we still work in this manner. From what I can gather, the CD was originally to be released on a label called Tumult about a year ago. What happened there, and how did you come into contact with Glass Throat Recordings? I approached Tumult because they put out the Noisegate recordings “The Towers Are Burning” and “Suspended Animation” and is run by a friend of mine, Andee Connors, who was the drummer of a band called A Minor Forest. His label is really interesting, he puts out music from all genre’s - everything from country to metal to noise. We were set to work with Andee, but when we learned that it would take a couple of years for the release to come out due to commitments to releasing other bands before us, we switched to Glass Throat Recordings with Andee’s support. I had met Chet Scott from Glass Throat Recordings at a Noisegate show in San Francisco. I started writing to him because I liked his music (Ruhr Hunter) so much. The music of Ruhr Hunter and beneath the lake is cut from the same cloth, so it made sense to ask him to release our music. He and his partner, Rachel, are very sincere at what they do and I couldn’t recommend their label any more highly. One of the things that I enjoy the most about Beneath the Lake is that you're not afraid to infuse melody into a core of experimental electronics. Often times this melody comes in the form of recognizable guitar lines, but the way you've incorporated guitars is more tactful than most. How would you describe your approach? I like noise music to be music. I hope that makes sense. Meaning that I like the music to have a composition, a melody, a structure that you can lock onto. I appreciated the approach of bands like Merzbow but we wanted to go in the complete opposite direction. Our music is very composed and we take months to complete a single track by adding more layers and by constantly critiquing it. With my guitar playing, I would often come up with a riff and then Dave would latter destroy it with effects or bury it in the mixing process. I would also add guitar track layers of noise and sounds that you would not think a guitar could make. I think Godspeed You Black Emperor and their side projects especially Set Fire to Flames had a influence on my return to using melodies. I had an interesting experience hanging out with some members of that band in Quebec City during the massive protests against the Summit of the Free Trade of the America’s in April of 2001. For three days, the city was basically a war zone and was under martial law and we were running around like fools with camera’s and mini discs trying to record it all. Another important facet of your music is the use of field recordings. All of the recordings that you have used are based strictly around natural elements and animals - water, wind, whales, wolves, etc. How do you acquire these field recordings, and when manipulating or arranging them, what do you hope to achieve? The use of field recordings from nature is one of the main components behind beneath the lake. Since the instruments that we use (electric guitars, samplers and the recording process) are so industrial, we like to contrast it with sounds from the natural world. Basically, we try to set up a confrontation between humans and animals, industrialism versus nature, modern nation states versus indigenous societies. These are issues that we spend a good deal of time thinking about and we try to comment on the larger issues facing the planet. Many of the field recordings are taking from location using a mini disc. In addition to your musical work, you're also a visual artist and a teacher. I've only seen one piece of your collage art, but I can see how it might connect thematically on some level to what you're doing musically. How would you compare the two mediums? I like to work with a lot of different mediums- music, collage, sculpture, writing. I tend to rotate back and forth. The themes mentioned above of juxtaposing two different elements are very prevalent in my collage work. Collage is similar to noise music in the way that you search out and find either sounds or images and re-construct them into your own vision. They both utilize the process of building off a base structure. If you think about it, we are literally bombarded with thousands of images and sounds on a daily basis. I enjoy bands like Negativeland who take this information, subvert it and throw it back into the mix. What inspired you to become a teacher? I have only been a teacher for a year- so I am still new to the process. I wanted a job that would be a difficult challenge for me. So far, it has been the most rewarding job that I have ever had. It is gratifying when someone tells you that you made a positive difference in their life. I teach all levels from elementary school to College in the subjects of art and history. One of the classes that you teach is Contemporary Political Art History. Talk about this, if you would. I just finished teaching this course at an art school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Political art is very much a hidden history so I was exposing students to artists many had never heard of because they are rarely published or shown in major museums. One interesting artist that relates well to beneath the lake is Agnes Denes. She did a piece entitled “Wheatfield-A Confrontation” where she planted and harvested a wheat field in downtown Manhattan, two blocks away from Wall Street. For months, she nurtured the earth, hand dug 285 rows and then finally harvested 1000 pounds of healthy golden wheat. On the day of the harvest, a large crowd gathered to pay respect and say goodbye to a field they had become so attached too in such an urban landscape. When the project was done, the land was returned to construction to make room for a billion dollar luxury complex. I find the project to be the ultimate juxtaposition and an important reminder of what lies beneath the surface. What are some of your personal political views, especially in regards to our natural environment and the types of themes that you explore with Beneath the Lake? Dave and I made a conscious effort not to make beneath the lake too political. We both have different outlets for our political activism outside of music. With beneath the lake, we try to draw inspiration from the natural world. This is a new approach for me because when I was in Noisegate, I was fueled by the urban apocalyptic atmosphere of Oakland, California. The feeling that it could all end tomorrow. That notion is very prevalent in that city and it created some incredibly powerful and angry music. The band, Neurosis tapped into that idea to the fullest. For beneath the lake, I try to tap into the experience of being in remote places in nature where humans are in constant danger of succumbing to the elements. Places where nature is far more powerful than any human being or invention meant to protect us from the natural world. I experienced that feeling firsthand traveling in Alaska and many of the songs on the recording were influenced by that trip. As far as my political views regarding the environment, I believe radical steps need to be taken on a global level to prevent a total environmental collapse from happening in the not so distant future. For starters, we should challenge the idea of “progress” and the idea that technology can solve all our problems. Many solutions exist already if you look at how indigenous societies live in communities throughout the world. Some practical ideas to me would be the banning of fossil fuels (especially oil and coal) and the restructuring of communities based on local economies, organic farming and public transportation (instead of car culture). The fate of the environment will never be a major consideration to people who live in extreme poverty, which is a daily reality for the majority of the worlds population. An important first step would be eliminating poverty and to do that I believe you need to eliminate corporate power and ultimately capitalism. Do you view Beneath the Lake as any sort of political outlet, even if it' s on the subtlest of levels? "Subtle” is definitely the right word in describing the political message of beneath the lake. As mentioned before, we set out with the intention of not being directly political in content. Dave’s other band, Wage Class Slave, is one of the more political noise bands that I know about and uses a lot of spoken word samples. With beneath the lake, we often try to capture past experiences in nature and the feeling that arises. Often before we record, we will hike in the woods in rural Wisconsin. The music will inherently be political because we are trying to reflect upon the natural world with the same tools that threaten it. A strange paradox to be in that sometimes makes me question what I am doing. INTERVIEW PART 2: 1B. Are/were either Wage Class Slave or Noisegate equally experimental (in reference to Beneath the Lake) when held against the standards of “traditional music?" Yes, Both Wage Class Slave and Noisegate are experimental noise bands. Wage Class Slave is a two piece containing two people both playing sampler as their main instruments. When I played in Noisegate (1995-2000) it was a four piece with bass, guitar, sampler and a film maker-who would project collage films during live performances. Also Dave Edwardson, who plays bass in Neurosis, played in Noisegate on and off between tours. 2B. With all this talk of politics, which you are obviously well versed in and dedicated to, I can't help but wonder if at some point or another you might have been involved in the punk scene before branching out into the noise scene? Good guess! I was very much involved with the D.I.Y. punk scene in the Bay Area when I lived their from 1993-2000. The scene was so exciting that it was hard not to fall into it. Noisegate was pretty much a punk band playing noise music. We would tour the US in a van, play basements and punk shows. We would often play 924 Gilman Street with bands like Man is the Bastard, Dystopia, Dead and Gone,Submission Hold…. At first, the punks hated us - the place would clear out, but after a few years, people actually enjoyed being pummeled by us. As far as branching out- Noisegate would also play in the experimental noise scene and we had a warehouse space where we put on shows for bands like Merzbow, Masonna, Tribes of Neurot, Carolina Rainbow, K.K. Null, Melt Banana, The Thrones… It was a very exciting time to be in the Bay. 3B. Assuming that the answer to the previous question was yes (if it was no, disregard this question), I've had a lot of discussions with people in recent months about the prospect that on some level, and in certain circles, experimental noise music is very much akin to what could be called “the new punk,” in so much as the D.I.Y. attitude, the unrestrictive musical format, and in some cases (though not often enough) the political views as well. Do you have any thoughts on this topic? That’s a hard question to answer because each city (in the US) has such a completely different underground music scene based on its own history and those who participate. For example some scenes are very divided where to be “punk” you have to play only one style of music to fit into that community. In other cities, the boundary’s between scenes and different musical styles are more open and people are more accepting of those who take risks. I tend to like those scenes better. Personally, I like all forms of culture that are D.I.Y. I recently co-organized a political art show that is trying to bring art into the mix instead of a culture being so dominated by music. The show is called “Drawing Resistance-a traveling political art show” and it has been traveling across the US, city by city, for the last year. The show will travel from 2001-2005 to cities in the US, Canada and Mexico and contains the work of 31 artist/activists from North America. 4B. Having already pointed out the long and seasonal process behind the work of Beneath the Lake, what can be expected in the future, and when? I think it is safe to say that beneath the lake will move at a slow pace. Both Dave and I are extremely busy with our regular jobs and other creative projects. We have always approached it as a serious project band that we would devote only a couple of months out of the year too. We seem to work best in the Fall and early Winter. That is our favorite season in Wisconsin, so perhaps that is where the creative energy comes from. I think this structure will allow us not to burn out on each other and the music. I imagine that beneath the lake will continue for many, many years to come. As far as new material - we have a couple of comp tracks in the works and we have the basic material for a second release all recorded. The plan is to mix the new material this Fall and hopefully have a new release out next year. We also plan on doing one live performance a year where we would play for 24 consecutive hours. 5B. I really appreciate your time and thoughtful responses with this interview. If you have any closing remarks, please feel free. Thanks for the interest in beneath the lake. We can be reached at: beneath the lake
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